Betrayal 04

She nodded back, stood and took the box from Mykal's hands. "Allow me, as a token of my gratitude for saving my family. In more ways than you know." she said as she took the insignias out of their box and attached them to his shoulder boards.

Hans smiled at how they looked on the young officer. "We'll work out the rank thing when we get back to the Sol system and have a real staff to work with, but for now, all you need to know is that the head of the Royal Lance is always referred to as 'Captain' or by his peerage rank, if he has one. Stick to that, no matter who it is that is addressing you, including the royal family," he smiled, "unless you want to play favorites and tick certain people off on purpose."

Mykal's eyes narrowed as he looked between the two royals. "You are leaving something out."

Hans' eyes widened and he sat back a bit from the young man. "Gods, you weren't kidding, Elaine. It's like he was raised in the Games."

"Games?" was Mykal's response.

"The Games of Court, Mykal. They are the little intrigues and plots that surround the throne and ruling class of the kingdom. We all play them, though some better than others, with the point being to keep your opponents off balance and to maintain your power base." She gave a girlish little giggle, "Oh, I can't wait until you're unleashed on the Court proper. I can hear the wails of consternation now."

Hans grunted. "As much as I hate the Games, they are a necessary beast in politics. Both inside our kingdom, and with other nations," he smiled slightly, "though the Centaris don't really hold much stock by it, thankfully."

The Centaris were the only other sentient race that the humans had discovered, besides the Carthanians. Where the Carthanians were overly militaristic; the Centaris, small of stature, with thin frames, large eyes, and soft grayish skin, were very peaceful, so long as you did not attack them.

"Mykal, there is going to be some people at this meeting that may be indifferent or evenly openly hostile towards you. It is very important that you do not lose your cool, no matter how you are goaded." Elaine said to him, touching his arm lightly.

Looking over at the queen, he nodded. "I understand." he said. "I'm there to keep them off balance, not pick fights."

Elaine smiled. "I knew I could count on you to get it." Standing, she held out her hand to invite Mykal to stand. "You keep your sword on. That will confuse the hell out them." she said with a smile to her husband. "Shall we?"

**************

Striding into the meeting chamber, Mykal's eyes swept over the assembled military men and members of court, automatically assessing the room for threats; even though the two royal guards that had entered the room ahead of him had done the same. Some of the men had their heads bent together in conversation so he was unable to get a good look at them all, but the ones that were paying attention as he walked in looked extremely surprised that he was here. "Keep them off guard." Mykal thought to himself.

Turning towards the door and nodding, arm in arm, the king and queen entered into the large room. He strode with strength and purpose, his posture leaving no doubt that he was the king. Beside him, with a hand resting in the crook of his arm, the queen seemed to glide in; full of poise and beauty, her stormy, blue eyes hard and calculating as she took in the room.

"Stand now for your King and Queen!" Mykal barked sharply, causing the conversing heads to snap up and look at the entering couple. Immediately, all stood, though Mykal saw that some did so a bit slower than the others.

The King and Queen took their seats at the head of the table and motioned to Mykal, who moved to flank the King and Queen, standing at their shoulders as if a guardian angel looking out for his charges. "You may sit." Mykal spoke in a clear and concise command voice. Caught off guard, the collected officers and nobles all sat at the command, regardless of rank.

An older man, a general from the rank that Mykal could see on his shoulder, was the first to recover. His face turning red, he looked directly at Mykal. "Who are you to be barking orders at us young man?"

The king immediately spoke up. "The man before you is the Commander of the Royal Lance. When he speaks, treat it as my voice." looking directly at the general, he asked, "Is that clear?"

There were murmurs of consent, and nods all around, though most looked as though they were not happy about this. Mykal's gaze took in the faces, ranks and insignias of each member of the council at the table. At the end of the table, sat a colonel that caught his attention fully. His grey eyes darkened and narrowed, in anger and disgust, at a face that had obviously been surgically re-constructed. As if he could feel that he was being watched, the man raised his eyes thinking he had not been noticed leering at the queen, and right into the steel grey eyes of the young officer. A chilling smile twitched on Mykal's face as he looked into the eyes of the man that ruined his career two years ago.

***********

Mykal stood his ground and watched over the meeting, filing away all of the tidbits of information regarding force size and structure of outpost worlds; what worlds had been recently struck, and what the overall situation facing the military was. He was getting better and better at sifting through the information quickly, and storing the 'files' into his new hardware. This certainly makes taking notes a whole lot easier.

Not only was he taking mental notes on military status, he also made note of how people interacted with the King, Queen and each other. Whenever the king asked for his opinion in regards to something, there was an inevitable barb launched in his direction; though always in a way that the sender thought was cleverly concealed. Every time this happened, Mykal's eyes locked on to the offender and did not waver until they wilted, realizing that the younger man was not one to suffer fools lightly. Most times, the person did not make a second attempt at insulting him.

The exception to all of this was Colonel Trenton Barovos. Not once did he make a snide comment loud enough to be heard any more than a few inches around him. Being only a few years older than Mykal, it was evident that he had obtained his rank due to political might, rather than his militaristic prowess. His bearing and posture made this even more evident and served to irritate and enflame Mykal even more.

Thinking on his meeting with the prince, Tobias, he felt confident that not all who obtained rank in the military based on family treated it as Barovos did. At the times that he was not looking at someone that had attempted to insult him, he allowed his eyes to wander over the faces of the people seated at the table. There were a few that met his eye and did not waver, even at times nodding slightly in recognition of who he now was. Most though averted their eyes uncomfortably.

Early on in the meeting, when he would focus on a potential trouble maker, he realized that he would suddenly be able to pull up information on whoever the perpetrator was. Their name, rank, home planet, even things as little as who they were married to and how many kids they had; all was suddenly in his brain. After the first few times, Mykal's brow furrowed slightly and he looked at the queen's face, in the reflection of the tablet she was holding up and reading from during the proceedings. A smile flickered over her lips and while brushing a non-existent stray hair behind her ear, she nodded slightly.

Yet another thing about this damn hardware that the doctor never told me about. Mykal thought to himself in irritation.

As the meeting was winding up, Mykal had a list of people he wanted to look into a bit more in depth, based on how they had acted over the last hour and a half.

There was a tense moment as the king spoke, "We have some information regarding the attack on Orphus III that needs to be made known."

Mykal felt a frenzied chunk of data float into the back of his mind, almost pleading in its format. [No matter what, do NOT react to what Hans is about to tell everyone; act as if it is common knowledge to you.]

Mykal nodded once, very slightly, looking down at the tablet in front of the queen. Knowing she had seen it, his attention went back to the king.

"As you know, the attack on Orphus III was a deliberate attack on me and my family. It was a strike that was meant to decapitate the kingdom in one strike. Due to exceedingly talented 'Mech pilots and a great deal of luck, we survived this attack; though we did lose the system to the Carthanians." Taking a deep breath and looking at his hands, that were clasped on the table in front of him, he continued, "There is no easy way to say this. We were betrayed from the inside. Someone with a great deal of rank and privilege de-activated the orbital defenses, and allowed them to land multiple assault carriers within striking distance of the palace compound. We don't know who everyone in the group that betrayed us is, as we are certain there is more than the one person at this time. We do; however, know who the mastermind is, the ring leader if you will, and the one person who stands to gain the most from my family's death. We have digital evidence of his direct involvement in dropping the orbital defenses, as well as outbound transmissions to the Carthanians indicating it was safe to start the attack. Unfortunately, in the ensuing chaos, he made good his escape."

Mykal was watching each of the men carefully, looking for anything that could indicate they had something to do with this. Most looked truly shocked or dismayed about the information. Only the persons that had obviously known about this information previously were able to keep a straight face.

One of the persons towards the end of the conference table, shifted in a way that drew Mykal's attention, and he found his eyes locking onto Barovos. If one were not looking directly at him as Mykal was, one would not notice that he seemed a bit green around the gills and wanted to be anywhere, but in this room, despite how hard he tried to hide it. Mykal continued to watch him; though he did so unobtrusively, to see if Barovos was going to slip up and reveal something actionable.

The king fell silent for a moment, as if he needed to gather his strength for what he was about to say. "The man who has betrayed us all is Marcus Daniel Davidov, Heir Primus to the Davidov throne."

The silence in the room was deafening.